Welcome to Ships Nostalgia, the world's greatest online community for people worldwide with an interest in ships and shipping. Whether you are crew, ex-crew, ship enthusiasts or cruisers, this is the forum for you. And what's more, it's completely FREE.

Jim Souter and I have been musing over the procedure for above. He recalls a small warming through pipeline, separate from the main steam supply, which was used initially on the Magdapur and Maidan, I cannot seem to recall this on the Manipur.
Anyone any recollections?
Jim

Jim Souter and I have been musing over the procedure for above. He recalls a small warming through pipeline, separate from the main steam supply, which was used initially on the Magdapur and Maidan, I cannot seem to recall this on the Manipur.
Anyone any recollections?
Jim

OCL's "Baby Bays" had a small bore bypass that bypassed the ahead manoeuvring valve for warming through, if opened more than about 1/2 turn it would actually let the turbine spin under steam once the turning gear was withdrawn which relieved the watchkeeper of the tedious job of cracking the ahead valve then breaking the job on the astern valve etc.

__________________
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Jim Souter and I have been musing over the procedure for above. He recalls a small warming through pipeline, separate from the main steam supply, which was used initially on the Magdapur and Maidan, I cannot seem to recall this on the Manipur.
Anyone any recollections?
Jim

Maidan for sure ; never on the Maipur but would imagine they were the same Jim .
Warming through steam open ; gland steam cracked open . Condenser circulating pump on ; start to raise a vacume .

We were leaving Bremen on a bitterly-cold January day and the whole-nine-yards came to a grinding halt when the air-ejector relief was steadily lifting and preventing any vacuum being raised.

I had a sudden thought, went up on the boat-deck, (where there was a tundish with two-or-three "exhausts" situated, can't remember what they were all for-----maybe calorifiers etc.), and found the tundish was a block of ice!!

Cleared the ice-block away and the exhaust from the air-ejector started roaring-out! Went back down-below and found there was already about 12" of vacuum!! E-e-e-e-e-e-e 'eck! What a memory!!!! Salaams, Phil

Phil ; When 4th on Maidan in 1968 on the coast with Tommy Jones as Chief ( got a beer for the old chief ? ) The rest of the E/R and Deck dept went to Annies Bar ( also known as the Brocklebank Bar in Antwerp ).
I started getting the job ready; my day aboard ; and expected the watches to return ( to start at noon as we were supposed to sail at around 1700 )
No sign of anyone ; went down and continued getting things ready ; up till then I had only been on a high pressure job once for a couple or three weeks as an apprentice and most of my time was diesel .
Managed to get things going OK and went up on deck to see if the troops were coming home ; the Mate had gone ashore looking for the troops .
The Old Chief appeared at the gangway and asked what the Vacume was ; told him 29.2 ??? and then he asked me to go ashore ( and he gave me the local cash ) to call Liverpool and let them know we were ready to sail . Apparently he always did this when the vacume was raised .

Little did he know that when I went ashore to make the call he was the only Engineer on board ( I did not tell him of the lack of support )
Troops arrived about 1700 and all went to bed ; I was alone ( apart fom our usual faithfull engine room crew who managed the boilers etc .)I stayed alone in the engine room leaving Antwerp unitil well after " Full Away "

It was my last voyage on a Steam Ship with the exception of a short stint on Mahseer to bring her from Trinco to Colombo with Jake Donelly .

Major loss of vacuum on Manipur 24/4/1960 when we were at anchor off Southend waiting to go up river. On heaving up the anchor fouled the sub. cable and had to mess around for a while. When about to get under way we lost all vacuum, and we searched around everywhere we could think to try and find tha cause. We were all having a sit down to have a think about it we noted that vapour issuing out under the lagging on the LP turbine, when we stripped off we found a crack in the top half casing extending for about a foot starting at a square inspec. manhole. Our solution was to scrape out a Vee and fill with Thistlebond!
Johnny MacCallum, CH, said try full revs astern if it holds we will go, which we did and docked at Tilbury, whilst docking a joint blew in a high pressure steam pipe, by that time we were past caring, same trip stripped teeth on main gear wheel at Newport locks, did trip at 80RPM, ballast pump burned out at Aden and also No 3 Ruston geny. blew up when one bott. end bolt broke and piston came out side of crankcase and pushed the cyl. head up out of line also at Aden. Happy Days

Major loss of vacuum on Manipur 24/4/1960 when we were at anchor off Southend waiting to go up river. On heaving up the anchor fouled the sub. cable and had to mess around for a while. When about to get under way we lost all vacuum, and we searched around everywhere we could think to try and find tha cause. We were all having a sit down to have a think about it we noted that vapour issuing out under the lagging on the LP turbine, when we stripped off we found a crack in the top half casing extending for about a foot starting at a square inspec. manhole. Our solution was to scrape out a Vee and fill with Thistlebond!
Johnny MacCallum, CH, said try full revs astern if it holds we will go, which we did and docked at Tilbury, whilst docking a joint blew in a high pressure steam pipe, by that time we were past caring, same trip stripped teeth on main gear wheel at Newport locks, did trip at 80RPM, ballast pump burned out at Aden and also No 3 Ruston geny. blew up when one bott. end bolt broke and piston came out side of crankcase and pushed the cyl. head up out of line also at Aden. Happy Days

It was all fun was it not ; what about the the case of the blown main steam joint ; no spare joining left .
Chief used empty Tennants boxes ( dovetailed ) joints and a product called manganistite . Did the job and got the ship to Aden for repairs .

Derek Roger has commented on the use of Manganesite Jointing Compound - That is a name from the distant past. I don't have any experience of the product but I remember during my time with Brocklebank that some Chiefs and 2nds would not allow its use - As I remember it the reason was that they considered the product to damage joint faces by etching through chemical reaction - Any views?

Another method of jointing flanges, particularly Scotch Boiler Mountings was "Lead Frame Joint" - I think that is how I remember it. Again I have no experience of the method but I believe lead wire was hand woven into a mesh that then used as a jointing. - Again any views?

I have "made" lead joint's by using lead wire woven around the joint face held in place by a jointing compound (whose name escape's me at the moment) , it was the same compound that was used on the finger slicing "Taylor's Ring's".

Sailed with a couple of Chiefs who absolutely forbade the use of Taylor's rings.
Claimed they did all sorts of damage to the flange jointing faces.

Derek

It might be the sealing compound (the name I still cannot remember this morning) that may have done the "damage" as it set like concrete, usually though, if you had to use Taylor's ring(s) the flange face's were badly damaged anyway and it was more of a get you home repair. Regard's

Never seen it done but I recall being told that a leaking Sctoch boiler scarph joint could be repaired by pumping maganesite through a grease nipple . The proceedure was to drill and tap the outer plate and fit the nipple .
I would imagine such a repair would only be temporary until a proper repair be carried out and rivited . Any one seen this done ???

Most unusual repair job I hear of was told by Jack Evans 2nd eng on ss Maihar when he was with Harrisons on SS Tribesman. The a--- had been blown out of the Edwards air pump and they fitted the fragment and chain rivetted all round the edges to fit, worked OK. He joined Brocklebank when Harrisons gave up the Indian run as he had a girl friend in Calcutta. Met him later on coast when he was chief on either Makrana or Mangla.

Never seen it done but I recall being told that a leaking Sctoch boiler scarph joint could be repaired by pumping maganesite through a grease nipple . The proceedure was to drill and tap the outer plate and fit the nipple .
I would imagine such a repair would only be temporary until a proper repair be carried out and rivited . Any one seen this done ???

Saw something similar on a vertical waste heat boiler endplate which was leaking at various places around the circumference. Can't remember if it was Metalock, but somebody came on board and drilled and threaded holes in the edge of the endplate i.w.o. the studs and pumped in some sort of goulash which cured the leaks.

One of the more spectacular leak-sealing perfomances I saw, by the "Furmanite" techs. was at Drax Power Station.

There was a massive steam-leak from a flange on one of the feed-heaters and to isolate and repair the leak would have meant shutting THAT particular Unit down with a huge loss in revenue.

So "Furmanite" were called-in.

VERY spectacular it was too!!

Three/four blokes vanished into the cloud of steam billowing from the leak and then, after quite a long time, the steam-cloud started getting smaller and smaller until eventually there was no steam at all------just three/four blokes packin-up all their gear.

Whilst the "Furmanite" system is brilliant, in such circumstances, (loss of revenue being the prime consideration), the aftermath is absolutely horrendous as the sealant used sets to a steel-like consistency and cleaning the falnge-face afterward is a monumentalo job. Salaams, Phil

One of the more spectacular leak-sealing perfomances I saw, by the "Furmanite" techs. was at Drax Power Station.

There was a massive steam-leak from a flange on one of the feed-heaters and to isolate and repair the leak would have meant shutting THAT particular Unit down with a huge loss in revenue.

So "Furmanite" were called-in.

VERY spectacular it was too!!

Three/four blokes vanished into the cloud of steam billowing from the leak and then, after quite a long time, the steam-cloud started getting smaller and smaller until eventually there was no steam at all------just three/four blokes packin-up all their gear.

Whilst the "Furmanite" system is brilliant, in such circumstances, (loss of revenue being the prime consideration), the aftermath is absolutely horrendous as the sealant used sets to a steel-like consistency and cleaning the falnge-face afterward is a monumentalo job. Salaams, Phil

Chilly - they are rather good aren't they - I particularly like their in-situ machining tools - some of which can only be describide as 'so cute you want to take them home'

__________________Glasgow gave me more than it ever took away and prepared me for life on the road

As they got older and better off, all the scousers that I ever knew denied that they came from Liverpool but insisted that they were in fact "from the Wirral". Must have been a crowded place.

In later times my uncle and his eldest son used to make the same claim, even though I visited them in Sergrim Road, Huyton all through the 1940s and '50s. Mind you at that time my uncle used to claim he was from "Huyton with Roby" and not just mere Huyton. He also never missed the opportunity to mention that he had been an officer (Lieut. in the REME) during the war. His other two sons were not so ambitious/pretentious. Pre-war he had been a plasterer, so I suppose he was some sort of scouse nobility.

Post-war he trained as a physiotherapist and made quite a career of it - but only after he had moved East to Wigan, now Greater Manchester, of course.

I was born in Higher Tranmere and went to Mersey Park School. So I am a proper posh chap ( not that it shows).
I have warmed up a good few turbines in my time too and also played "hunt the vacuum". Amazing the minor leaks that cause steam ship havoc!
Now live in Yorkshire

As they got older and better off, all the scousers that I ever knew denied that they came from Liverpool but insisted that they were in fact "from the Wirral". Must have been a crowded place.

In later times my uncle and his eldest son used to make the same claim, even though I visited them in Sergrim Road, Huyton all through the 1940s and '50s. Mind you at that time my uncle used to claim he was from "Huyton with Roby" and not just mere Huyton. He also never missed the opportunity to mention that he had been an officer (Lieut. in the REME) during the war. His other two sons were not so ambitious/pretentious. Pre-war he had been a plasterer, so I suppose he was some sort of scouse nobility.

Post-war he trained as a physiotherapist and made quite a career of it - but only after he had moved East to Wigan, now Greater Manchester, of course.

Something like a lot of the managers at Lithgows in Port Glasgow Ron, they always used to brag "I am a Port boy through and through" but as soon as they got a step up they moved to the west end of Greenock or Gourock!